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KEY POINTS:
When the Blues' brilliant unbeaten run ended at Albany a few weeks ago I saw how good Ali Williams can be. Sit close to the sidelines and you do not so much see the match as experience it.
Big Ali came on in the second half when the
Blues were reeling. They had played the same instinctive game that had succeeded in previous matches, flinging the ball about, attacking from anywhere.
For a while it worked, not quite well enough to get to the line, but almost. It seemed a matter of time. The Sharks, a solid South African unit, scored a couple of break-out tries but were mostly on the defensive, muscling up, kicking well.
Then, as often happens in rugby now, defence began to win. The Blues were wilting before halftime. Even Troy Flavell looked burned out. After the break they were no better.
Eventually, their coach released All Blacks he had been keeping in reserve since their return from World Cup conditioning rest. Kevin Mealamu went on first and made a difference, but it was Williams' arrival that you began to notice. The team had new drive.
He was doing no more than using his exceptional combination of lanky athleticism, ball-handling ability and that knack to be in the right place at the right time. When a player like that is on his game it can be inspirational for a team. You could sense it that night.
It was too late to change the result but the loss released coach David Nucifora from his reluctance to re-introduce the All Blacks during a winning streak. The Blues, you believed, would be better for it.
But they were not. They went to South Africa and something went terribly wrong with Williams. He started in the next match and his contribution to a worse loss was noted only for conceding a daft penalty. He was benched again the following week, and the next. Now he is an outcast, unwanted for this weekend's semifinal against the Sharks, unwanted even with the team.
It is only up close, near the sidelines, that you notice these men are boys, souped-up boys who have to handle the heady business of being national heroes. Managing the players of any country's proudest game must require qualities beyond the normal skills of a sports coach.
The day after the Blues' third loss I was in Christchurch, where my father's good friend Bill McCaw, a 1950s All Black, asked as soon as he saw me, "What are they saying about Nucifora up there?"
"Not much," I replied, quite at a loss to explain to a Cantabrian that when an Auckland coach leaves his best players on the bench and the team runs off the rails, we are reasonable about it.
I have not heard radio talk but press criticism of the coach has been as restrained as former All Black John Drake in the Herald last week: "There have been some interesting selections, up to eight changes per game, and the returning All Blacks [are] being rested more than anyone except coach David Nucifora would like."
Williams was probably the most anxious of all Graham Henry's "protected" World Cup prospects when he had to sit out so much of the Super 14. The competition for the three lock slots in the squad attracted keen comment. There were five contenders, or six if you counted Flavell who was playing out of his skin.
Williams ranked third, vulnerable to sustained efforts by the rest. He needed to play. Sitting on the sideline at Eden Park week after week, he looked like a coiled spring ever tightening.
I wonder if his attitude changed when injuries put two of his challengers out of contention about the same time that Nucifora needed him at last. By the time he got to start a game in South Africa he probably believed he owed the coach about as much as he gave him.
If that was the reason, nobody will say. The problem is under public relations control now, and that means no excuses are permitted.
It is hard to know which was worst this week, an All Black's attitude to a team, the team's mishandling of him, or the way they both used us, the public, for his atonement. Personally, I cannot stomach these modern rituals of self-abasement.
When Williams was banished he immediately consulted his agent. And the Blues' chief executive, Andy Dalton, delayed his departure for the semifinals to "liaise" with him.
Well-prepared and accompanied by the man from the players' association, Williams went to a press conference suitably contrite. I could watch about two seconds of it.
Professionalism has done wonders for the skill and speed at which rugby is played, but it has carried a cost to old qualities, like loyalty, modesty and honesty, when you are not allowed to defend yourself, to say nothing.